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Doing Both: How Cisco Captures Today's Profit and Drives Tomorrow's Growth
"Doing Both shows how Cisco turns business questions into market answers, offering real-life examples that will benefit forward-looking leaders." —Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE
"The best business books build around a single idea, often contrarian and counterintuitive. Everyone knows you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. One of the first things you learn at business school is that management is about making difficult choices. Well, not always. This book persuades the reader that in decision making ‘and’ is often better than ‘or.’ Well worth the read." —Sir Terry Leahy, CEO, Tesco
"Companies are often confronted with false choices, such as disruptive or sustaining innovation and optimization or reinvention. This book draws on Cisco’s impressive track record over the last decade to illustrate that the correct strategy is always to do both." —Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Group
"I have a very short personal list of ‘most-admired companies,’ and Cisco is one of them. Its management team has figured out how to break many ‘either-or’ tradeoffs that limit most companies’ abilities to innovate and grow. This book is a lucid, cogent chronicle of how they do this. Your entire management team should read it." —Clayton Christensen, Robert & Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, and author of The Innovator’s Dilemma
"Insightful recommendations from a key executive within Cisco, the game-changing leader in networking for the Internet." —Garth Saloner, Philip H. Knight Professor, and Dean, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
"Doing Both brings together many powerful lessons behind the story of Cisco, a company with a long record of delivering consistent innovation and strong business results. I encourage senior executives to embrace the challenges presented in this thoughtful book." —Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director, McKinsey & Company
Over the past seven years, in a highly unstable global economy, Cisco doubled revenue, tripled profits, and quadrupled earnings per share. How? By Doing Both. When companies face key strategic decisions, they often take one path and abandon the other. They focus on innovation and new business at the expense of core businesses or vice versa. They stress discipline and sacrifice flexibility. They focus on customers and ignore partners. And they struggle. Cisco believes there is a better way: Doing Both. Doing Both means approaching every decision as an opportunity to seize, not a sacrifice to endure. It means avoiding false choices, reduced expectations, and weak compromises. It means finding ways to make each option benefit and mutually reinforce the other. In this book, Cisco Senior Vice President Inder Sidhu explains why “doing both” is today’s best strategy. Then, drawing on Cisco’s hardwon insights and the experiences of companies like Procter & Gamble, Whirlpool, and Harley-Davidson, Inder presents a complete blueprint for "doing both" in your organization, too.
Win by Doing Both!
• Sustaining and Disruptive Innovation
• Existing and New Business Models
• Optimization and Reinvention
• Satisfied Customers and Gratified Partners
• Established and Emerging Countries
• Doing Things Right and Doing What Matters
• Superstar Performers and Winning Teams
• Authoritative Leadership and Democratic Decision Making
"The best business books build around a single idea, often contrarian and counterintuitive. Everyone knows you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. One of the first things you learn at business school is that management is about making difficult choices. Well, not always. This book persuades the reader that in decision making ‘and’ is often better than ‘or.’ Well worth the read." —Sir Terry Leahy, CEO, Tesco
"Companies are often confronted with false choices, such as disruptive or sustaining innovation and optimization or reinvention. This book draws on Cisco’s impressive track record over the last decade to illustrate that the correct strategy is always to do both." —Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Group
"I have a very short personal list of ‘most-admired companies,’ and Cisco is one of them. Its management team has figured out how to break many ‘either-or’ tradeoffs that limit most companies’ abilities to innovate and grow. This book is a lucid, cogent chronicle of how they do this. Your entire management team should read it." —Clayton Christensen, Robert & Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, and author of The Innovator’s Dilemma
"Insightful recommendations from a key executive within Cisco, the game-changing leader in networking for the Internet." —Garth Saloner, Philip H. Knight Professor, and Dean, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
"Doing Both brings together many powerful lessons behind the story of Cisco, a company with a long record of delivering consistent innovation and strong business results. I encourage senior executives to embrace the challenges presented in this thoughtful book." —Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director, McKinsey & Company
Over the past seven years, in a highly unstable global economy, Cisco doubled revenue, tripled profits, and quadrupled earnings per share. How? By Doing Both. When companies face key strategic decisions, they often take one path and abandon the other. They focus on innovation and new business at the expense of core businesses or vice versa. They stress discipline and sacrifice flexibility. They focus on customers and ignore partners. And they struggle. Cisco believes there is a better way: Doing Both. Doing Both means approaching every decision as an opportunity to seize, not a sacrifice to endure. It means avoiding false choices, reduced expectations, and weak compromises. It means finding ways to make each option benefit and mutually reinforce the other. In this book, Cisco Senior Vice President Inder Sidhu explains why “doing both” is today’s best strategy. Then, drawing on Cisco’s hardwon insights and the experiences of companies like Procter & Gamble, Whirlpool, and Harley-Davidson, Inder presents a complete blueprint for "doing both" in your organization, too.
Win by Doing Both!
• Sustaining and Disruptive Innovation
• Existing and New Business Models
• Optimization and Reinvention
• Satisfied Customers and Gratified Partners
• Established and Emerging Countries
• Doing Things Right and Doing What Matters
• Superstar Performers and Winning Teams
• Authoritative Leadership and Democratic Decision Making
- GenresBusiness
197 pages, Hardcover
First published June 6, 2010
7 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
About the author
Inder Sidhu
9 booksLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 4, 2014
Desde Leader Summaries recomendamos la lectura del libro Hacer ambas cosas a la vez, de Inder Sidhu.
Las personas interesadas en las siguientes temáticas lo encontrarán práctico y útil: liderazgo, estrategia y modelos de negocio.
En el siguiente enlace tienes el resumen del libro Hacer ambas cosas a la vez, Cómo Cisco supo adaptar su estrategia en distintos ámbitos de gestión para adaptarse a los cambios del mercado: Hacer ambas cosas a la vez
Las personas interesadas en las siguientes temáticas lo encontrarán práctico y útil: liderazgo, estrategia y modelos de negocio.
En el siguiente enlace tienes el resumen del libro Hacer ambas cosas a la vez, Cómo Cisco supo adaptar su estrategia en distintos ámbitos de gestión para adaptarse a los cambios del mercado: Hacer ambas cosas a la vez
July 22, 2010
Enjoyed the book. I thought the ending was a little weak; to the point, but could have closed with more strength. i.e. lead the reader with a summary or more in-depth guidance of how to do both.
Overall, It's very good... a deep look at the innerworkings of Cisco serves as the perfect example of a company that succeeds by doing boths.
Overall, It's very good... a deep look at the innerworkings of Cisco serves as the perfect example of a company that succeeds by doing boths.
July 29, 2010
It's a good read. I enjoyed some of the technology history aspects of the book. The main theme of the book is good, but there aren't many companies out there with the leadership that Cisco has. I see only a fraction of a fraction of businesses being able to take advantage of the ideas presented here.
August 28, 2010
An interesting perspective on Cisco's strategic approach, but perhaps a bit self serving. Worth reading although it doesn't always look like that from the trenches. (Full disclosure, I work for Cisco.)
March 19, 2016
I was expecting a much more insightful book but this one could have been summarised in 30 pages. The concept of doing both makes sense in certain circumstances but the book felt overall like a corporate advert for Cisco. Disappointing.
January 29, 2011
Vlastně proč by se v Cisku nepochválili, když jim to pěkně šlape. Aspoň jsem se dozvěděl, proč dávají partnerům tak mizerné rabaty.
April 1, 2011
I always like the idea of doing both and having it all.
April 23, 2011
Not bad, will be interesting for Cisco fans.
December 30, 2012
Interesting read on more about the history and the direction of Cisco? Does layer in some tidbits on running and evolving a tech business but doesn't quite hit that level of depth. Good easy read.
January 20, 2016
An Cisco insider pens a paean to the company while describing how to create robust strategies by avoiding false choices
July 3, 2018
It's definitely a Cisco oriented book, but a good read nonetheless.
Read
January 30, 2019If you get your hands on this book, read the Epilogue first. There is a little note from the author . Its not about CISCO. But about himself. Nice piece, there.
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\nThe author is one of the key brains behind CISCO's worldwide operations and planning. And he is talking about a company where 80% revenues come from 3rd party companies sold through a staggering 282,000 direct and indirect sales people worldwide (and just less than 1% forms direct sales force)
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\nInteresting insights from an insider.
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\nThe author is one of the key brains behind CISCO's worldwide operations and planning. And he is talking about a company where 80% revenues come from 3rd party companies sold through a staggering 282,000 direct and indirect sales people worldwide (and just less than 1% forms direct sales force)
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\nInteresting insights from an insider.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews